LITMIR.BIZ

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the decency to behave yourself.”

      Libby could feel herself turning red. She wanted to shrink into the floor. She hated calling attention to herself. She was the person who waited to pee in the movies until it was over because she didn’t want to disturb other people, and now she was going to do something that would make everyone look at her. She could feel her heart start to race. Don’t be such a chicken, she told herself. Just do it. Now. She took a deep breath and stood up.

      “Excuse me,” she murmured as she stepped on people’s feet. “So sorry.”

      In the background she heard Bernie say, “She gets these really bad migraines. Can’t stop throwing up. That’s why we have to go. Now.”

      Leave it to Bernie to make me into a public spectacle, Libby thought bitterly as she reached the end of the aisle.

      “Migraine?” she said when they got outside. “I throw up? That’s attractive.”

      Bernie shrugged. “It was effective. People let us through really quickly.”

      “That isn’t the point.”

      “I thought it was. Anyway, what else was I supposed to say? That we wandered into the wrong funeral by mistake?”

      “You could have made up something else.”

      “I did.”

      “Something else.”

      “This was the first thing that occurred to me.”

      “Fine.”

      “And by the way, your blouse is open.”

      Libby looked down. The third button on her blouse had come undone. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” she wailed.

      “If I had seen it I would have. It must have opened when you stood up. Remember, I followed you out.”

      Wonderful, Libby thought. Now she was an exhibitionist as well as a funeral disturber.

      “I’m coming apart at the seams,” she moaned.

      “If you bought better quality clothes you wouldn’t have that problem.”

      “There’s nothing wrong with Marshall’s,” Libby heard herself snap. “Not everyone can shop at The Most.” Let alone fit into their clothes.

      Bernie made a rude noise.

      Libby wanted to say that she didn’t see the sense in spending hundreds of dollars on a skirt, especially these days, what with the condition the oven was in, but she decided now was not the time to start a fight with her sister.

      “Can we leave my clothes alone and concentrate on getting to the correct funeral?” Libby said instead.

      “By all means. So where do you think the Vongel funeral is anyway?” Bernie replied. “This place is huge.”

      Libby looked around. On this they could both agree. It was true. The Hanson Funeral Home was now extremely large. Libby remembered when the place could only accommodate two funerals, but in the past year Marvin’s father had gone on a building spree. He’d kept on adding room after room. Now the place could fit ten to twelve “bereavements,” as Clayton liked to call them.

      “This is like one of those bridal palaces out on the Island,” Bernie remarked. “It just goes on and on forever. I’m surprised they don’t have the gold funeral room for the rich, the purple one for those with royal persuasions, and the green one for the ecologically minded among us. You know, themed burials like they do out in Hollywood. You could have the Viking funeral, the Roman funeral, the French Revolution funeral—that of course would come with optional knitting.”

      Libby massaged her temples. “You’re giving me a headache.”

      “No. The air freshener in here is giving you a headache.”

      “Bernie,” Libby pleaded. “For once be quiet.”

      “Fine.”

      Libby watched her sister’s eyes rest on the huge bird-of-paradise flower arrangement in front of them. “And don’t say anything about that either,” she instructed.

      “I wasn’t,” Bernie said, sniffing, even though Libby knew that she had been thinking it. “Except to point out that they’re bad feng shu. They’re blocking the energy flow.” And Bernie pointed in the direction of the entrance hallway. “I bet there’s some sort of directory in there.”

      “Good thinking,” Libby said. She started trotting off in that direction.

      She’d taken two steps when she could feel her pants begin to slide. As she yanked them up, she saw Marvin come down the hall. Oh no, she thought. Why do I always see him when I look like such a mess? She knew that he didn’t care, but she did.

      “Thank heavens I found you,” Marvin said as he came toward them.

      He was panting slightly and his tie was askew. That made Libby feel better. Bernie always called her and Marvin the two schleps, and she hated to say it but her sister was right.

      “Why? What’s the matter?” Libby asked him. He looks tired, she thought. He’s been working too hard. Which, if you’re a funeral director, Bernie would point out, isn’t such a good thing for the rest of the community.

      Marvin looked around. When he was sure no one was watching he hugged her. “I thought you’d be at the Vongel funeral.”

      “We made a mistake,” Bernie said. “We ended up at the Voiton affair.”

      Marvin shook his head as if to say that was something he would have done, and as he stepped back Libby remembered yet again why she loved him.

      “We’d better go. My dad is waiting to speak to you and Bernie,” Marvin told her.

      “Why?” Libby asked again.

      “He’ll tell you,” Marvin replied as he motioned for her and Bernie to follow him down the hall.

      “Why can’t you?”

      “I’d rather he did,” Marvin said, and he looked so unhappy Libby decided not to insist.

      Three steps later he tripped over the leg of a chair that had been placed out in the hallway and stumbled into a table with one of the bird-of-paradise flower arrangements on it. Bernie caught the vase just as it was about to tumble over. That was the other thing she liked about Marvin, Libby thought. He was clumsier than she was.

      As Marvin thanked Bernie for saving the flowers Libby wondered what on earth his father wanted to talk to them about. Clayton wasn’t particularly fond of her, her sister, or her father. He thought they were a bad influence on his son, distracting him from the family business and giving him, in Marvin’s father’s own words, “fantasies about being a detective when he should be concentrating on other more important things.” Notably the family business.

      It was a business, it must be said, that Marvin wasn’t particularly fond of. Libby didn’t blame him. She still hadn’t reconciled herself to what he did. It gave her the creeps if she thought about it, so she tried not to. How could anyone want to be a funeral director? No matter how much she tried she just couldn’t see it.

      But then, Marvin didn’t really have a choice. At least not when you had a dad like Clayton. She and Bernie were lucky they had their father. Very lucky. Libby bit her lower lip as she tried to remember what Bernie called Clayton. A martini? A martin? No. A martinet. She was trying to remember what the word meant when she realized that Marvin had said something to her.

      “Excuse me?”

      “What’s the matter with your pants?” he asked.

      Libby looked down. They were beginning to slide down her waist again.

      “Nothing,” she said. As she hoisted them up she could hear Bernie snickering in the background. “Nothing at all.”

      It

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